Ee, thanks @c-e-p5315 @tynithia & @optimisticgrey for the tags. I think the most self-indulgent thing I have done recently is wrangle an extremely self-indulgent engagement scene into what was meant to be a comical tale of Gale accidentally multiplying himself just because the question of how Gale and Alyss got engaged was on my mind.
So here it is, how Gale proposed to Alyss, which maybe a little bit more her proposing to him but letting him do the asking.
Propaganda, not how it happened
In the deepest heart of winter, Gale and Alyss emerged onto the rooftop, putting their combined strength into shoving the door open against the accumulating snow. It was the heaviest fall of the season, and both were eager to watch it from the warmth of their new refuge above the city.
Cloaked and booted, they made their way across the rooftop. Alyss stopped partway, tipping her face to the sky to watch the snowflakes perform their dizzying descent.
Gale watched her instead. He'd seen his share of winter snowfalls. He had not yet had his fill of watching Alyss's face light up with delight at something she found beautiful.
She stood there until the flakes began to dampen her cheeks and the cold had started to burn at her ears. Then she turned away and made for the structure at the roof's edge, already glowing from within, illuminated by small faerie lanterns, enchanted to kindle when someone drew near in the dark.
The finished greenhouse was an enchanting thing: decorative ironwork framed the glass with butterflies, flowers, and trailing vines, as Dale had envisioned. Every joint was reinforced with double-bound enchantments, as Gabe had insisted upon. Gale had finished the construction with the help of two Blackstaff apprentices, who had proven eminently more agreeable than his simulacra. Alyss had filled the interior with flowers and comfortable furnishings, and in the time since it had been completed, they’d made it wholly, unmistakably, theirs.
Inside, they shed their cloaks and boots at the door and turned to each other in the dreamlike light. Gale drew Alyss close and kissed a last stubborn snowflake from the tip of her nose. "What did you want to show me, my heart? I can't imagine anything lovelier than you in that dress against a backdrop of moonflowers, but you always manage to surprise me."
Alyss touched the violin at her back. "It isn't something I want to show you. It's something I want to play for you. Something I've been working on these past months." She took his hand. "Come."
She led him to the cushioned bench at the centre of the space, surrounded on all sides by orchids, lilies, hibiscus, jasmine, moonflower, and the newest addition: small pots of cyclamen, blooming red and white around the room's perimeter. The air was warm and faintly humid, rich with the mingled scents of flowers that had no business blooming in the depths of winter.
Gale settled onto the bench and found waiting on a nearby table a decanter of the Cormyrian red he favoured. Alyss gestured toward it, and he poured himself a glass and prepared to give her his full attention.
She had dressed for this. He took in the fine figure she cut in her signature dark midnight blue, threaded through with gold that clung to her curves before flaring into full skirts that moved like water. His eyes followed the line of her bare arms, ringed with gold bracelets, her hair braided and jewelled so that she glittered in the faerie light. This was no casual performance. She was dressed in the finery she wore to perform at nobles’ houses. He leaned forward, suddenly intent on hearing whatever she had come here to tell him tonight through her music.
As she raised her violin to her shoulder, she looked at him and he saw something in her eyes he had never seen before. She was nervous. The realization made him nervous too, and he sipped his wine to calm himself. When she set her bow to the strings he caught the faintest tremor in her hand. He had never seen her show nerves before, not even when she had played before Laeral Silverhand herself.
Then she began, and he forgot everything else.
Years ago she had played him a song of their love — a tribute and a warning, in the days when he had been about to lose her. This was a continuation of that song. He heard the same strains in it, the ones that spoke of quiet evenings in the tower, of a life built between two people. This time however, beneath the love, wasn’t sadness, but fear. A powerful, illogical fear that clutched at the heart and whispered that loving always led to loss.
Tears sprang to his eyes as he realized this was Alyss’s fear. He had heard Alyss speak of it to Dale in the music room, through memories that were not entirely his own. Then the melody shifted, as she gathered herself and turned to face what frightened her. Not in one brave stroke like she would face more physical monsters, but steadily and stubbornly, with the help of those who loved her. She faced her fears step by careful step until at last only the love was left, larger and stronger than it had been before. It rose in a tide of notes that seemed to move around him like an embrace. It told him, in the language she spoke most fluently, that she was ready for whatever came next.
When the last note faded, she lowered her bow and looked at him with a love that was almost painful to receive. By the time she had set her violin carefully away, he was there, gathering her into his arms.
He had made many plans for this moment. Grand plans: the perfect setting, the perfect words, the perfect accompaniment. He’d revised and rehearsed the details over many months. Every one of them fell away. What remained was simply holding her and asking her, plainly, to be his wife.
His heart hammered. Her music had always spoken to him as clearly as words. That was her gift, and he trusted it. But there was still that voice, the one that had never quite been silenced, which told him that when he reached for things beyond his deserving, he failed. Spectacularly, and at great cost.
He was so afraid that he very nearly missed it when she said yes. So soft was her voice, and so loud were his own thoughts. "Yes?" He had to be certain.
"Yes," she said again, laughing through her tears, and sealed it with a kiss. He led her to the bench and drew her down beside him.
"If the answer is truly yes," he said, "then I believe I should give you this." He reached into the pocket where it had been waiting, longer than he cared to admit, and produced a delicate ring of golden flowers set with tiny blue stones, each one the precise shade of her eyes. He took her hand and slid it onto her finger.
Alyss held her hand to the light, tracing the tiny flowers with her fingertip. "It's beautiful, Gale," she said quietly. "I'm very proud to wear it."
After that, words seemed beside the point. The snow fell thick and silent against the glass above them, while inside the cyclamen bloomed and the jasmine sweetened the air. They found other diversions to mark the occasion in the bower he had built for her. The bower that might never have been finished at all, if three extraordinarily opinionated wizards had not eventually, improbably, found their way to working together.
Gale, for his part, chose not to dwell on how much of his happiness he owed to Dale's scheming. Some debts were better left unacknowledged.
[Link to the full one-shot]
Gentle tags for @naiatabris, @elandra-beltharys, @glitterandmoondustofficial, @alliskit, @rdekarios @bladesingerlily, @unovafarm - if you've got something supremely self-indulgent to share, let me indulge with you!
2087
theartofmadeline
areudirty
titsay
jacobvanloon
